Editorial: Ethics law in Illinois? That's not a typo

Illinois didn’t become the pay-to-play state overnight, and it won’t become an ethical Eden overnight, either.

Illinois didn’t become the pay-to-play state overnight, and it won’t become an ethical Eden overnight, either.

But the Illinois Senate is at least walking toward the garden — it has taken an important step toward a more ethical, accountable and transparent government.

By a 55-0 vote Monday, senators overrode the governor’s amendatory veto of pay-to-play reform. That means the legislation reverts to its original form, House Bill 824, which prohibits contractors with $50,000 or more in state deals from giving campaign cash to the state officeholder who oversees the contract. The ban will take effect Jan. 1.

It seems like basic good government, but in Illinois, there’s nothing basic about that.

For Cynthia Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, it was time to celebrate. After three years of intense effort to pass a bill, and unrelenting headlines about crooked deals, something was finally getting fixed. Someone had finally listened to the people.

At the same time, Canary is not naive. She said in a press release that unethical officeholders and contractors will still look for ways to game the system.

But the General Assembly, she said, has made it much more difficult for pay-to-play to flourish.

“So many big campaign contributors have wound up with state contracts that Illinois has won a reputation as a state where you have to pay a campaign fund to win a government contract,” Canary said.

Over time, the schemes seemed so commonplace that honest contractors stopped doing business with the state. They refused to pay what amounted to a corruption tax.

No doubt taxpayers paid the price for the “good” contractors staying home. While Illinois had the best government money can buy for contractors and influence peddlers, it was a lousy deal for everyone else.

The governor did what he could to derail the ban. On the last day before the bill would have become law automatically, he vetoed it, substituting instead an executive order that he said would do much the same thing. It didn’t. For one thing, there were questions about whether it would be legal and enforceable after his term was over.

Senate President Emil Jones tried to do the governor’s bidding. He planned not to call the bill for an override vote until after the election Nov. 4. But then Attorney General Lisa Madigan applied pressure, saying the delay would have invited a court challenge that too much time had transpired, making the bill invalid.

There’s pressure, and then there’s pressure. What sealed the deal was an appeal to Jones by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate and former state senator.

Way back when, Jones showed Obama the ropes at the Capitol. Now Obama returned the favor, showing Jones when he had nowhere to hide and nothing to do but call the vote.

This law may not stop the chronic disease of pay-to-play in Illinois, but it’s a good start.